Its great to see Japan evolving their study methods. I really agree TOEIC has probably destroyed the interest for learning English for a lot of people.
@ccookf Steam probably shows the world releases based on your IP address / location (though this is just a guess). There are Japanese games though.
Regarding games, Nintendo Switch is perfect for this. You can set the region to Japan and just buy from the Japanese eShop… There are lots of websites online where its possible to buy Nintendo eCards to top up your balance.
For eBooks… There are options too (probably a credit card is required): Bookwalker JP, Booklive , eBookJapan. Most of these websites have free samples (when you click on the book cover) and some volumes are free for a period… The only downside it that you are locked in their ecosystem.
I think it was just a bizarre issue on the side of the publisher. A few of their other titles have the same issue and I’ve spotted similar problems with indie games that do things like baking their UI as images. Shoutouts to the awesome localizers who manage to deal with the technical/political issues.
I should probably dig my switch out and give that a go. I remember setting up a JP profile to snag a Monster Hunter demo way back when and it was relatively painless. It just kind of slipped my mind since I’m pretty much always at my pc these days.
One extra thing on this. It all comes down to your app. Sooooo many apps cannot handle furigana. In my experience, your best bets are the native apps (kindle reader etc), or Moonreader. Moonreader cannot handle vertical text, but it deals with Furigana fine. The app that comes preinstalled on Boox e-readers has also been making leaps and bounds recently, so supports almost all formats.
Because Kobo and Kindle apps work very well with Japanese content, you could always try uploading your own books to the app. I think both kindle and kobo allow you to do that (don’t quote me on it though).
You could also say the same about 外国人 and the JLPT. I have experienced it myself on 文プロ even, suggestions for additions to grammar points/example sentences go declined for the reason that they are “irrelevant for the JLPT”.
I get the idea that they want to avoid clutter, but the ゆく reading for 行く is still very common in jpop, and quite honestly: Who of us really is only learning Japanese to pass the JLPT?
Definitely good points, but 95% of people who do the JLPT do it cause they want to do it. Now pretend in your country that a conversation with your boss would go like this
Boss - You’ve been doing well recently. Up that JLPT score and you may even get a promotion!
Employee - Eh…? JLPT…? I don’t use Japanese in this job… In fact no one does?!
Boss - Now now, those are the company rules. You need to be proficient in Japanese to show the rest of the employees how much of a hard worker you are!
Employee - But we don’t deal with Japanese people at all, this is a small-town bread factory!
Boss - Where’s your progressive attitude! One day we may deal with Japanese people, and there you’ll be, prepared to face them with all the yoroshiku’s and whatnot.
Employee - I… I don’t understand.
Boss - Fantastic, your test is next Friday. Get at least 70% correct in all sections or that arigatou will turn into an ari-uh-oh… If you know what I mean.
Employee - gulps
This is the reality that the vast majority of people in Japan face. It’s not a choice, and it doesn’t even benefit them in their daily lives. It’s just a terrible tradition that is engrained into the entire workforce.
I’m sorry, but please don’t write little dialogues as a response to a forum contribution, especially ones that feature the person you are responding to as one of the characters… That feels extremely condescending.
I feel like learning languages is held back by copyright / drm, that sort of thing. Otherwise we’d see a lot of innovation and fun ways to learn.
The worst part is people would be willing to pay for it if it existed (imagine a comprehensive learning course based on a beloved videogame or book).
The second worst part is the drm / copyright isn’t even necessary, since those things have long been known to just make it harder for people who do pay. They’ve done studies that show that pirating has 0 effect on profit. Ah well, it is what it is.
In some ways Ubisoft are not a great company. But you have to give them credit for releasing a high quality version of the Assassin Creed games aimed at learners with detailed explanations about historical sites, objects and people.
Probably the main reason a lot of stuff does not exist is that (probably) there is not enough of a market for it…
It would be really cool if for an example a visual novel gave you an interactive list of all the grammar / vocab / kanji used before starting a new chapter :D.
Not exactly the same thing but there is a website that let’s you enter in your WK/anki api and before starting a new Manga/anime (iirc) it will tell you what new words you’ll be learning. I may be a little wrong about those details but I believe someone linked it here once and it was a tool I really need to start using.
Good post as usual. I don’t know if I’ve ever met a Japanese person who became proficient in English without genuinely enjoying it, or some sort of life changing incentive. (Job, foreign spouse).
We really do live in an incredible age where Japanese content is literally at our fingertips, just like English content is readily available for Japanese speakers.
No offence intended, and definitely not trying to make you feel small. Just trying to give you a better idea of what life is like for people in Japan. I changed the name for you.
I get the overall point you’re making, but the reason ゆく would never get added is because it’s not exactly a grammar point. I’d guess that the only reason simple verbs like する and くる got added for N5 was because you’d need to understand their significance for て-form and beyond re: conjugation. These examples are useful though, and would be a good addition to mine for any Anki deck. Perhaps someone could create a thread for similar types of words/phrases/etc. to give better insight on how locals view something and everyone could slowly contribute to it.
I have often thought the same thing. Imagine having the netflix option to pay an extra $5 a month to have access to all Japanese content, or whatever other country. I think most people would pay it.
TV channel that broadcasts on pure Japanese outside Japan JSTV HD costs 27$/month in my country. Yep, just a single channel, in addition to the standard monthly payment for cable TV.
And compared to Netflix, the channel offers very limited set of shows. So I’m afraid such option for Netflix wouldn’t be as cheap as 5$.
One of the absolute best things I ever did for my Japanese learning was take it upon myself to translate my favourite singer’s Instagram posts. They post near enough daily, if not more than once, and actually telling myself “OK, now translate it” has made me really appreciate the knowledge I’ve gained in Japanese. I’ve been doing it for a year and a half now, and now I tend to translate interesting interviews as well as just random announcements/news too.
I mention this because it’s probably been the one thing that has made me gain some perspective on my own learning, and I’ve had a lot of fun doing it. I’ve learnt stuff that I wouldn’t have had I just whacked the autotranslate button and left it at that, and it’s been a great motivator for me to actually keep it up.
Sometimes when the studying gets me down, I’ll go and look at the account I post my stuff on and go “Oh, there’s over 1500 posts here, and like 95% of those are translations. I did that!”. Or I’ll pick up the novel that I’m reading right now, and be like “I made it through 150 pages so far of content for native speakers, and I know what’s going on!”.
I’m definitely one of those types who has to learn everything yesterday and mistakes are a no-no, but I’m trying to teach myself out of that kind of mindset and appreciate how far I’ve come, rather than how far I’ve got to go. I can go to concerts and understand most of the MC section! I can read lyrics and know what a song is about! That to me is Super Cool™, and I feel lowkey like I’ve discovered some language learning hack when really its just common sense that if you study in the things you find fun, the studying itself is fun.
Not to go on too much, but I’ve actually quit learning Japanese multiple times for varying reasons. I’m sure part of why it was so easy for me to quit those times was because I wasn’t actually doing the stuff I wanted to do in Japanese, and it ended up not really being the fun experience it should have been. Which it is now!
I think many of us have vpn subscriptions just for this. It’s a silly loophole, but necessary. I’ve shared some of the Netflix language extensions for learning with natives if they want to use. Many already use Netflix just to watch their favorite shows anyways, so probably already pretty common. Whether they are actively get vpns for more content, I couldn’t say.
From the natives I talk with who have known English for a while, they had their fun activities. Stuff like learning songs or reenacting movie scripts were in their course content and what ever personal lesson they did in juku, many cases conversation development (some of this is quite a few years ago). So I don’t believe it’s entirely been a grey cloud of TOEIC grinding, is this what ALT/JET English teachers are seeing lately?
I’m sure not everyone will agree with this, but I consider learning and studying as two separate activities. Some reading, if breezing through it, is more like reviewing which is maybe a third option. So I do scrutinize how I’m spending my time whether I’m just having fun or what I’m gaining from an activity. Certain material I prefer a feedback loop so I can check my comprehension on a reliable source. Some genre have a very specific vocab focus, which is great for understanding that type of content but not always well rounded. But generally speaking, heavy content crunch-learning is great if you have ALOT of time to do so and can have fun doing it. But for adult learners who work full-time with other obligations need time effectiveness, study methods are preferred…I suspect this is case for many Japanese adults as well. But Japan is surrounded by English, if I see something like kana in US, it’s sort of a unicorn siting.
It really depends, but Japan is hard to change, their teachers don’t allow english teachers to deviate from the script in order to not steal the spotlight from them.
